


The past is a foreign country

by dana_norram



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Character Study, Cooking, Domestic, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Forehead Touching, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Smut, Nostalgia, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:13:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28628598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dana_norram/pseuds/dana_norram
Summary: “What is the matter, my heart?” Joe asks as he holds you now, sweat slowly cooling on your naked skin. He strokes your arm with the tip of his fingers, as if tracing a pattern. “You seem... away.” He kisses your neck, his beard burning and healing you all the same. “Tell me, where are you hiding?”“When.” You answer with a snort. You can be funny sometimes as well. “It’s July, the wall just came down.”
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 53
Kudos: 217





	The past is a foreign country

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seul (eiseul02)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eiseul02/gifts).



> This for Seul, the kindest human begin I have had the pleasure to meet in 2020, and it was loosely inspired by one of her [beautiful arts](https://eiseul.tumblr.com/post/633367758945566720/). Please go follow her on Tumblr (and/or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/luesi02)) and give her all the love she deserves. I know I am a few hours late, but I wish you a very happy birthday and I hope you enjoy this ficlet.
> 
> My deepest thanks to [Michelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/side_biddy/) who speed-beta this for me after coming home from a long day of work. You are amazing and deserve to be hugged by both Nicky and Joe! Thank you so much for correcting my typos and for cheering me on. <3

“I have been meaning to ask,” Nile chirps, and her braids swings as she does a little dance in front of the oven. The smell of baking fills up the kitchen, her birthday cake almost done. “When is _your_ birthday?”

You pause, big wooden spoon in the air, a large pot of slow-cooking polenta over open flame. Scorching bubbles burst over the yellowish surface and some of it spills on your hand. It stings and it heals almost immediately, one single sensation. You lick the salty maze porridge off your skin and you go back to stirring. You have been doing it for the past forty minutes and you have at least another ten to go. It will be worth it.

“Nicky? When is it?”

It’s a fair question, you muse, even if you don’t know the answer. Nile thinks in modern, precise terms, her world measured by the second. You still remember your days being ruled by the tolling of the bells. Even today, as you calculate the distance of a target and the speed of the wind, you always whisper a little pray before you take the shot. It used to hurt so much, the need for a higher power.

You consider answering that you just don’t remember it, but you never liked lying. That was the first thing Joe ever loved about you. How earnest you could be. It fills you with pride and when you feel the heat on your face, you blame it on the open flame before you.

“I was born in the winter.” It sounds eerie when you say it out loud and you look up when Nile makes a confused noise. She wrinkles her eyebrows and you offer her a shrug and an almost apologetic smile. You had calendars back then, of course, but time was differently kept, differently assessed, differently acknowledged. “The birth of the second son of a merchant was not necessarily stuff for the books.”

“Oh,” she says and checks on the cake with a toothpick. It comes out clean and dry. “I see.”

She does not sound happy and you wish you could sooth her feelings about her future.

You know Nile loves history and you and Joe and even sometimes Andy indulge her with tales on the past, but for Nile history is something she still thinks she can control. Something that can be stored in carefully labelled boxes according to a time period, a region, a group of people, all borders sensibly established. You have history imprinted within you, and you remember sounds and smells and tastes that cannot fit in the pages of a book.

You were born in the winter, and you only know because your mother had told you enough times how you almost died during those chilly nights. She told you how relieved she felt when spring finally came along and she knew you had thrived at last.

You died in the summer, the sun kissing your face, but your fingers felt cold nevertheless. You fought against the chill, trying to stop your guts from spilling out of your carved belly, and you remember looking up, knowing you would never be welcomed in heaven.

You were never sure about how many times you died and came back to life, about how much time had passed, except for all the fallen corpses around you, slowly rotting away. You already knew it by then, but it never ceased to amaze you. How sweet death could smell. Tears burned your eyes as Jerusalem crumbled, and when a familiar shadow fell over you, you did not bother to move, too tired to kill the same man again. You waited for the pain of a new death, but it never came. When you looked up, there was a hand outstretched, a peace offer you knew you did not deserve, but you accepted it anyway.

It was autumn when Yusuf had asked why you had done all those things. Why you travelled so far and killed so many, and you pulled your cloak around you, feeling almost bare as you looked into his eyes and answered sincerely. In return, he gave you the saddest smile you ever saw in another human being and you fell desperately in love then. You spent the following months asking yourself if you should have lied. If you should have told him you were tricked by the Pope, by the Abbot, by God Himself. If you should have tried to make him see you were innocent of all your sins, but how could that be, when your sword felt so heavy still?

“So I guess you could be a Capricorn, then?” Nile says as she helps you to pour the polenta onto a large plate to cool down. “Or maybe an Aquarius?”

You let her chat away about elementals and traits and strengths as you notice the sound of a car approaching the hallway. You eye the knives in the magnet holder above the sink, and you blink as you recognise the sure sound of Joe’s footsteps out in the veranda. He makes a cheerful noise once he steps into the kitchen, his arms full of paper bags. You get to him before Nile can and thank him for the wine and for the eggs, but you don’t press your foreheads together as you want to. You know he understands. He smiles his half smile, eyes bright and open as he steps away to find Andy.

Later Nile blows out the candles Joe had bought along with the groceries, and you accept when he offers you another glass of wine. Andy is feeling generous tonight, and she presents Nile with stories about Chicago during the Prohibition. None of those tales ever made into the history books and she does not avoid Sebastien’s name as the night goes on. You stare at Joe from across the table, relieved to witness his gentle, sad smile.

You feel content and almost sated a couple of hours later as he takes your hand between his long fingers and leads you to your shared bedroom in the back of the safehouse. It is small and cramped and perfectly out of earshot. You take off each other’s clothes as if peeling the skin of an orange, mindful and hungry for the gentle flesh beneath it. He presses you against the mattress, hard and aching, and you sink your fingers in his curls when your tongues finally touch.

It was full spring when you let Yusuf fuck you on a pallet in a small inn in _Al-Baretoun_. It did not come as a surprise for you when it finally happened, but even so you could not take your eyes off him during the whole time, afraid he would vanish if you so much as blinked. Yusuf did look surprised when you kissed him back, though, so you apologised for your lack of skills. His gentle laugh shook your whole body and you held onto him, legs around his waist, fingers on his hair and beard.

“What is the matter, my heart?” Joe asks as he holds you now, sweat slowly cooling on your naked skin. He strokes your arm with the tip of his fingers, as if tracing a pattern. “You seem... away.” He kisses your neck, his beard burning and healing you all the same. “Tell me, where are you hiding?”

“When.” You answer with a snort. You can be funny sometimes as well. “It’s July, the wall just came down.”

You feel when Joe holds his breath and presses a kiss on your shoulder. Over the years you two had many conversations about the last day of the Siege, but not lately. You understand his hesitation and you intertwine your fingers together, holding it over your heart.

It feels like praying, in a way.

“We died that day,” you say and you pull his hand up so you can kiss his knuckles.

“We are born that day.” Joe replies, voice heavy.

“Yes,” you let yourself relax against his chest. “So I guess that makes us a water sign or something.”

Joe laughs this time, a deep, clean sound. “You are going to need to bake a bigger cake if you want all those 921 candles to fit, my heart.”

You pinch Joe’s wrist and smirks when he lets out a loud yelp. “I can tell when you are making fun of me, my love.”

Joe hums and holds your chin between his fingers. You look up at him, drawn into his bright eyes. “I apologise,” he says as he presses your foreheads together. “May I kiss you now?”

The answer gets stuck on your throat and you feel like crying. Those are happy tears, though. Most of them are since the day Yusuf offered you his hand.

“Always,” you reply and you pray for it to be truth.

  
  


_The past is a foreign country:_  
they do things differently there.  
**The go-between - L.P. Hartley**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for giving this little story a chance. I am fully aware that second person POV is not everyone’s cuppa, but I love writing it, so if you enjoyed this piece, please consider leaving a comment and/or kudos. And remember: all comments are good comments, short, long, reaction emojis, something in your native language (English is not mine either, it’s okay!), go crazy and you will make me love you forever.
> 
> Now, the thing I love the most about Joe and Nicky is the fact they met as enemies in 1099, which you probably can guess by the number of Crusades-Era fics I have here. I am a historian and the Crusades and Military Religious Orders are my main research interests, so for me they are truly the ultimate ship. I have a [Tumblr](http://negotiumcrucis.tumblr.com/) where sometimes I meta about History, but mostly I just reblog other’s people fantastic works.


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